Education Action Plan for the Belt and Road Initiative

2017-10-12 14:35:17Source: Belt and Road Portal

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Education
Action Plan for the Belt and Road Initiative

Issued
by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China

July
2016

The
“Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road” initiative
(hereinafter “the Belt and Road Initiative”) affords immense opportunities for greater
openness, further exchanges, and deeper integration in education in the regions
and countries along the routes. Increased cooperation and joint action by the
Belt and Road countries in education are an important part of what the Belt and
Road Initiative aims to achieve, and in turn, can provide the talent needed to
make the Initiative a success. China is ready to work with the countries along
the routes to expand people-to-people exchanges, strengthen cooperation in the cultivation
of talent, and together create a bright future for education in the region.

I. Mission of Education

Education is vital to the strength of a
country, the prosperity of a nation and the happiness of a people. It has a fundamental
and guiding role to play in the Belt and Road Initiative. Educational exchange
can serve as a bridge to closer people-to-people ties, whereas the cultivation
of talent can buttress the efforts of these countries toward policy
coordination, connectivity of infrastructure, unimpeded trade, and financial integration
along the routes. The countries along the routes share a closely interdependent
bond and educational exchange between these countries goes back a long way,
therefore the prospect of educational cooperation is wide and bright. The joining
of hands in the development of education to build the Belt and Road together is
a great endeavor which will benefit all peoples along the routes.

China will consistently stick to its open policy
in education and deeply integrate with the global trends in educational reform
and development. Promoting a common prosperity of education in the countries along
the routes will not only strengthen win-win cooperation with these countries,
but also provide strong stimulus to domestic reform and development in education.
China is willing to shoulder as many responsibilities and honour as many commitments
as possible, and to make a greater contribution to the development of education
in the region.

II.Vision for Cooperation

The countries along the routes will work
together to deepen mutual understanding, expand openness, strengthen
cooperation, learn from each other, to pursue common interests, face our shared
future, shoulder common responsibilities, and work concertedly to build a Belt
and Road educational community. We will strive for equal, inclusive, mutually
beneficial, and dynamic cooperation in education. To promote the development of
education in the region and produce wide-ranging support for the Belt and Road
Initiative, we will work together in an endeavor to:

1. Promote Closer People-to-People
Ties. We will broaden, elevate,
and deepen people-to-people exchanges and promote ever-stronger understanding
and bonds between the peoples along the routes.

2. Cultivate
Supporting Talent. We will spare no
effort in cultivating the much-needed talent for the Belt and Road Initiative to
support policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, and
financial integration among the Belt and Road countries.

3. Achieve Common Development. We will join hands in deepening educational
cooperation and promoting mutual learning to boost the development of education
in our countries and improve the overall leverage of the region’s education.

III. Principles for Cooperation

Principle 1: Focusing
on Nurturing of the People, Prioritizing People-to-People Exchanges. To cultivate the talent much needed for
the Belt and Road Initiative, we should strengthen cooperation in nurturing of
the people and improve the essential competencies of the population throughout
the region. We should prioritize people-to-people exchanges and put in place such
regional mechanisms that aiming at building a bridge for closer people-to-people
ties across the region.

Principle 2: Combining
Government Guidance with Social Involvement. Governments of the Belt and Road countries should
strengthen mutual communication and coordination, combine various resources and
steer the integrated development of education. We should give full play to the
proactive role of schools, enterprises, and other social actors to promote dynamic
cooperation and diverse exchange in education.

Principle 3: Realizing
Shared Growth Through Consultation and Collaboration, and Fostering Greater Openness
and Cooperation. With a commitment
to the principle of achieving shared growth through consultation and
collaboration, the Belt and Road countries should create greater links and
better coordination between their national development plans for education, fostering
integration and interaction in the development of education of all countries
along the routes.

Principle 4: Promoting
Harmony, Inclusiveness, Mutual Benefit and Win-Win Outcomes. We should scale up efforts for dialogue between
different civilizations, seeking the best corresponding points in educational development
and the greatest common measure in educational cooperation. Our ultimate
objective is to realize mutual benefit and complementation in education among all
countries along the routes.

IV. Priorities for Cooperation

As each country along the routes has its own
distinctive features in education and the whole region in general boasts
abundant educational resources, there are great potential for complementation,
and vast space for cooperation. China proposes a three-pronged framework of ground-laying,
support-building, and forward-thinking actions. Within this framework we
propose three main areas of cooperation to speed up the development of
education in all Belt and Road countries while catering to each country’s
educational objectives, referencing to each other’s experience in educational
development, and sharing each other’s best educational resources.

Area 1, we aim to
carry out cooperation to improve educational interconnectivity which will
include the following 5 elements:

1). Strengthening coordination
on education policy. We will carry out
joint studies on how to coordinate domestic laws and policies on education among
the Belt and Road countries and put in place an information sharing mechanism for
education policies. In doing this, we aim to provide advice to the governments
of the Belt and Road countries on coordinating our education policies and to offer
policy consultation to schools and social actors in the Belt and Road countries
on educational cooperation and exchanges. We will redouble efforts to reach
bilateral, multilateral, and sub-regional framework agreements for educational cooperation;
propose an international instrument on educational cooperation and exchange
among the Belt and Road countries; steadily break policy-related bottlenecks in
educational cooperation and exchange, seeking to establish more arrangements to
have academic credits to be mutually recognized and more dual and joint degrees
conferred, with the prospect of working concertedly to build an integrated educational
community.

2). Facilitating smooth
channels for educational cooperation. We will promote simplification of visa application
procedures for each other’s citizens, expand the scope of educational cooperation
and exchange, and forge partnerships featuring frequent interactions, abundant cooperation,
dynamic exchanges, and deep affinity. We will encourage schools that already
enjoy established cooperative relations, or have similar research projects and
share common education development goals, to forge sister school partnerships and
steadily deepen and broaden their educational cooperation and exchanges. We will
hold forums for school principals, rectors and presidents from countries along
the routes and promote pragmatic cooperation of our educational institutions at
different levels and in different disciplines. We will support higher-education
institutions, based on their respective strengths in specific fields, in
establishing joint laboratories (or research centers) and international technology
transfer centers with their counterparts in the Belt and Road countries, in a
bid to work together to respond to the enormous challenges and opportunities
faced by our countries in economic development, resource utilization,
ecological preservation, and so on. We will establish academic exchange
platforms for the Belt and Road countries, paving the way for our experts,
researchers, and students to undertake collaborative research and academic
exchanges. We will work to promote sharing of quality educational resources among
the Belt and Road countries.

3). Breaking
language barriers between the Belt and Road countries. We will explore how to build coordination
mechanisms for breaking language barriers to jointly develop open language
courses, and gradually incorporate courses on our different languages into the
curricula of each Belt and Road country. We will expand inter-governmental
language exchange programs and work together to cultivate, and help each other
to cultivate, high-level language experts. We will give full play to the
strengths of universities focusing on foreign studies and foreign languages in
training strong linguists, and promote the development of multilingual teaching
staff for elementary and secondary education as well as foreign language education.
We will expand the number of students sent overseas with government
scholarships for language training, and encourage institutions from the Belt
and Road countries to work in partnership with Chinese institutions to
establish programs that teach their own languages in China. We will support the
engagement of more social actors in establishing Confucius Institutes and
Confucius Classrooms, and scale up efforts to train both full-time Mandarin teachers
and volunteer Mandarin teachers to meet the demand from the Belt and Road
countries for Mandarin language training.

4). Fostering closer
people-to-people ties. We will encourage
researchers from the countries along the routes to carry out independent and joint
research on topics related to China, helping the people of their countries to gain
a deeper understanding of China’s education and culture, as well as its development
model and national policies. We will set up research centers for specific countries
and areas and work with counterparts from target countries to carry out research
in fields such as economics, politics, education, and culture. We will gradually
incorporate international understanding education and Silk Road cultural
heritage protection into the curricula of countries along the routes in a bid
to deepen the understanding of our youth about cultures in the region. For that
matter, we will also boost implementation of youth exchange programs along the
Silk Road, giving particular attention to activities and instruments such as internships,
volunteer service, cultural experiences, sporting events, innovation and business
startups, new media and social media.

5). Promoting articulation
of criteria for mutual recognition of academic credentials. We will strive for the implementation of
the UNESCO’s Asia-Pacific Regional
Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education,
support UNESCO’s efforts to build a global system for mutual recognition of
qualifications, and promote mutual recognition of academic credentials in the
region, both bilateral and multilateral. We will encourage countries in the
region to improve their education quality assurance systems and academic accreditation
mechanisms, and to expedite the development of their national qualifications framework.
We will help learners from our different countries to transfer in different
types of education or at different stages in their education, and promote the development
of life-long learning societies. We will work to plan together and build
together a regional qualifications framework for vocational and technical education
and steadily unify employment standards across the region. We will explore the
establishment of common standards for teachers’ professional development among the
Belt and Road countries, delivering greater mobility for teachers within the
region.

Area 2, we will deepen
cooperation on cultivation and training of talent which will include implementation
of the following 4 programs:

1). Silk Road Two-Way
Student Exchange Enhancement Program.The
Chinese government will set up the Silk Road Scholarship, aimed at training leading
talent and technicians for countries along the routes. China will, attending to
every aspect, improve the quality of education received by international
students in China and work to turn China into a popular destination for
students from the Belt and Road countries. Heading up efforts with national scholarships
for study abroad, we will encourage more Chinese students to study in the Belt
and Road countries. China will place equal importance on sending students
overseas and receiving international students, equal importance on funding
students to study overseas and encouraging self-sponsored overseas studies, equal
importance on increasing the number of international students and improving the
quality of education offered to them, equal importance on law-based management
of the students and improving services to them, as well as equal importance on cultivating
the talent and giving full play to their roles. China will improve its comprehensive
management and service system for outbound and inbound students to ensure their
safety, health, and success during their time overseas or in China.

2). Silk Road Co-Operation
in Running Educational Institutions and Programs Enhancement Program. Chinese universities in a position to run educational
institutions and programs overseas must concentrate on their strong disciplinary
fields, choose the right entry points for cooperation, conduct reliable feasibility
surveys, and put in place systems and models for education and training, management
and operations, service to the locality, and public relations with the
community and the host countries. This will all be with a view to seeing these educational
endeavours operate effectively and perform well in the localities. We will encourage
higher education institutions as well as vocational and technical colleges to cooperate
with industries and business entities to achieve industry-education integration
in which governments in the Belt and Road countries should play a guiding role,
while actors in the education sector should play a leading role. We will encourage
China’s top vocational and technical institutions to develop an overseas presence
through collaboration with Chinese high-speed railroad and telecommunication companies,
to explore different models of cooperation in running educational institutions
and programs overseas, including establishment of vocational colleges,
technical colleges and training centers, and joint development of educational
resources and programs. Such multi-layered cooperation in vocational and
technical education and training will help to cultivate the different kinds of
talent that are much needed by the Belt and Road countries. Countries along the
routes should all mobilize our resources and actively promote practical
cooperation with each other in employment training for young people as well as in
other areas of common concern. We call for cooperation among the Belt and Road
countries in running top-level educational institutions and programs.

3). Silk Road
Teacher Training Enhancement Program. Through the Silk Road teacher training programs, we
aim to strengthen exchanges on the best practices to improve the quality of
education in the region. We will encourage teacher exchanges, and give impetus
to exchange visits for school principal, and refresher courses and study tours for
teaching and management staff in the region. Through this, the Belt and Road
countries can learn about the region’s best education models in education from each
other. We will facilitate the exportation of high-quality teaching equipment,
courseware, and full-package teaching solutions from countries along the routes
and make forward strides in teacher training with the ultimate objective of achieving
equitable distribution of educational resources and balanced development of education
among the Belt and Road countries.

4). Silk Road Joint Education
and Training Enhancement Program. We will promote academic exchanges and visits among the Belt and Road countries.
We earnestly encourage universities in the region to carry out joint education
and training programs needed to meet the urgent development demands of the Belt
and Road countries, in fields such as languages, transportation, architecture,
medical science, energy, environmental engineering, hydraulic engineering, bio-sciences,
marine sciences, ecological preservation, and cultural heritage protection. In
this, we aim to facilitate the sharing of educational resources among university
alliances and between universities with bilateral relations.

Area 3, we will jointly
set up concrete mechanisms of cooperation which include the following 4 elements:

1). Strengthening
high-level consultations on people-to-people exchanges. Through high-level consultations on
people-to-people exchange between the Belt and Road countries, both bilateral and
multilateral, we will collectively formulate a master blueprint for educational
cooperation and exchange in the region. We will coordinate and encourage the
establishment by the Belt and Road countries of bilateral or multilateral
mechanisms to promote educational cooperation, ensure the quality of education,
and oversee the functioning of regional cross-border education markets, so as
to coordinate and promote joint action for education in the Belt and Road
region.

2). Giving full play
to platforms of international cooperation. To explore new space for educational cooperation among
the Belt and Road countries, we will give play to existing bilateral and
multilateral mechanisms for cooperation in the region, including the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, the East Asia Summit, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation,
the Asia-Europe Meeting, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building
Measures in Asia, the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, the Southeast Asian
Ministers of Education Organization, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic
Corridor, and the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor. By working with
international organizations like the UNESCO, we will give impetus to the
establishment of coordination mechanisms among the Belt and Road countries to
realize global educational development goals. To further pragmatic educational cooperation
and exchanges among the Belt and Road countries, we will fully tap into those
platforms already in place, including the China-ASEAN Educational Cooperation
Week, the China-Japan-Korea Committee for Promoting Exchange and Cooperation
among Universities, the China-Arab States University Presidents Forum, the
China-Africa Universities 20+20 Cooperation Program, the Forum for Chinese and
Japanese University Presidents, the Sino-Korean University Presidents’ Forum,
and the Sino-Russian University Association. We will support educational
institutions within the same region with established cooperative relations and
similar disciplinary concentration to form alliances and continue to expand and
extend platforms for cooperation in education.

3). Implementing the
“Silk Road Education Assistance Program.” Education assistance is an important component of our
joint action for education in the Belt and Road region. We will gradually scale
up educational assistance, focusing on investing in the people, assisting the people,
and benefitting the people. We will give play to the important role of education
assistance in “South-South Cooperation,” increasing the level of support that
goes to countries along the routes, particularly the least-developed countries along
the routes. By coordinating governmental and nongovernmental educational resources
as well as those of the education system, we will educate and train teachers, scholars,
and technicians with different specializations for countries in the region. We
will actively undertake to provide education assistance packages that incorporate
high-quality teaching equipment, teaching schemes, and teacher training. More
will be done to strengthen China’s education and training centers and the 10 education
assistance bases supported by the Chinese Ministry of Education. We encourage that
each country establishes mechanisms for diversified fundraising with a leading
role by the governments and active involvement of social actors. By combining
government funding, private financing, and public donations, we aim to broaden
the funding sources for education, enlarge the scope of education assistance,
and achieve shared development in education.

4). Implementing the
“Silk Road Golden Camel & Golden Sail Awards Program.”Any individual, team, or organization from
the international community that has made an outstanding contribution to promoting
educational cooperation and exchange between or among the Belt and Road
countries, or that has played an important role in achieving more equitable development
of education in the region, is eligible to receive these awards.

V. Chinese Education in Action

China calls for an educational community built
by countries along the routes to pool our efforts on the Belt and Road
Initiative. This first of all requires that China’s education sector and actors
from different sectors of Chinese society play a proactive and exemplary role.

1. We should strengthen coordination in the
implementation process. We will strengthen overall planning and coordination between
different ministries, provinces and cities across China to engage in educational
cooperation and exchanges with the Belt and Road countries in an orderly manner.
China will improve the governing institution of its education, amend relevant
laws and regulations, and proceed with comprehensive educational reform, which
will improve its ability to implement smoothly and effectively the Education Action Plan for the Belt and Road
Initiative. The Chinese Ministry of Education will work closely with other entities
like the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce, and national industrial and trade organizations,
with a view to the general development of the Belt and Road Initiative, to
identify important areas for cooperation and put safeguarding mechanisms for
operation in place to ensure successful implementation. This will help to
ensure smoother channels for international cooperation and exchange in
education and to link up with the strategic plans of the Belt and Road countries
for the development of education.

2. Different provinces and cities are to have
their own focus in moving forward. Prominence will be given to the role of provinces
and cities as main actors, the mainstay, and the implementers of the Belt and
Road Initiative. Provinces and cities across China are required to use the
advantages of their respective geographical position and their distinctive local
features as they move quickly to formulate local plans to see that education
and the economy go global hand in hand. At the same time, they must closely
align their own plans with the national master plan. We encourage local
governments in China to steadily establish “friendship province” or “sister
city” relationships with their counterparts in countries along the routes, and
expect them to effectively promote substantive people-to-people exchanges. Provinces
and cities should draw on their own strengths to mobilize resources for
establishing domestic and overseas platforms, help universities and businesses
to complement each other’s strengths, and ensure positive cooperation through
which development benefits are shared. Provinces and cities should introduce a
range of measures to support and guide local education systems to cooperate
with their counterparts in the Belt and Road countries. With this, provinces
and cities across China can elevate themselves into prominent ranks in educational
cooperation and exchange with overseas counterparts, and in turn, boost their
own educational development.

3. Educational institutions at different
levels of the education system should steadily press ahead. Guided by the old
Chinese motto that “He who craves for success empathizes with others and helps
them to be successful,” Chinese schools and universities should steadily expand
cooperation and exchange with their counterparts in the Belt and Road
countries. They should take their best educational resources with them as they
engage in cooperation and exchange outside China, and select the most valuable
educational resources to bring home from other countries, being inclusive and tolerant,
and both learning from and teaching others. In this way together we can make
our education more internationalized and strengthen our ability to act in
service of the common development of the Belt and Road Initiative. China’s elementary
and secondary schools should expand inter-school cooperation and exchange with their
counterparts in the Belt and Road countries, concentrating on teacher and
student exchanges, teacher training and international
understanding education. Chinese universities as well as vocational and
technical colleges should work on the basis of their own development strategies
and local action plans for the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative,
to carry out various forms of cooperation and exchanges with their counterparts
in the Belt and Road countries. Stress should be given to the coordinated
development of perfecting the modern institution of university, creating new
models for cultivating talent, strengthening the quality of education offered
to international students in China, optimizing the performance of overseas educational
institutions and programs, and facilitating the growth of businesses and enterprises.

4. Social actors should be encouraged to be more
involved. Wider-ranging, deeper-delving and higher-aspiring nongovernmental educational
cooperation and exchange will pave the way for more insights, support, solutions,
and action from our societies. China will scale up its efforts to foster and
promote the development of Chinese nonprofit organizations. With government purchase
of services and market-based resource allocation, we will give great support to
social organizations and specialist groups that dedicate themselves to the
cause of international cooperation and exchange in education, and create an
enabling environment for international cooperation led by social actors. We
will step up the pace of efforts to facilitate the exportation of teaching
equipment and traditional Chinese medical services. We will support enterprises
and individuals, working according to the rules of the market and in accordance
with the law, to engage in forms of international cooperation like cooperation
with foreign partners in running educational institutions and programs,
carrying out joint research projects, and providing services to foreign
customers. Chinese enterprises should work closely with Chinese education providers
in exploring opportunities for cooperation in talent cultivation such as
technological innovation and technology transfer. This will help to serve
economic development and trade growth for the Belt and Road countries.

5. We will work together to yield tangible benefits
of cooperation as soon as possible. Highly flexible and resilient mechanisms for
cooperation are needed on the ground. We will jumpstart those cooperative
projects that are feasible and have been agreed on by stakeholders. We will set
clear and reasonable timetables for the implementation of such projects to
ensure that they yield the expected benefits within a short span of time. In
2016, Chinese provinces and cities shall submit their own education action
plans for the Belt and Road Initiative in which concrete efforts will be made to
steadily promote educational connectivity and cultivation of talent, and to establish
mechanisms for cooperation. In 2017, the common education action plan of the
Belt and Road countries for the Initiative, which prioritizes cooperation in the
afore-mentioned three areas, will be further implemented. Over the next three
years, China will send annually 2,500 government-funded students to countries
along the routes. Over the next five years, China will set up 10 science and
education bases overseas and sponsor 10,000 students from the Belt and Road
countries to pursue degrees or get short-term training in China.

VI. Working Together to Create a Bright Future
for Education

As an African saying puts it, “He who travels alone travels
faster, yet he who travels in company travels farther.” Cooperation and
exchange are the main venue for the Belt and Road countries to build an
educational community. It is our common aspiration to promote economic and
social development and improve the living standards of our peoples through educational
cooperation and exchange and by working together to cultivate highly competent talent.
It is our shared responsibility to strengthen the pillars of regional peace
through educational cooperation and exchange and thereby expanding
people-to-people exchanges.

China is ready to work with the Belt and Road
countries to set up a diverse range of mechanisms for educational cooperation,
based on principles of openness, cooperation, mutual-benefit, and win-win
outcomes. We will make specific timetables and roadmaps for further cooperation,
introduce flexible cooperative mechanisms, and setting up exemplary cooperation
projects. This will help us to meet the development demands of each Belt and
Road country while at the same time to achieve common development.

The Ministry of Education of China proposes that we,
the Belt and Road countries, channel our energies and enthusiasm into action, scale
up efforts to align our strategic plans and coordinate our policies, explore
new mechanisms and models for educational cooperation and exchange, further deepen
and broaden educational cooperation and exchange, and ensure the quality and
effectiveness of all such initiatives. Based on principles of mutual
understanding, mutual trust, mutual assistance and mutual learning, we shall join
hands to promote the development of education and closer people-to-people ties.
With these efforts, we will build an educational community among the Belt and
Road countries together and create a new chapter of beautiful life for all humanity.

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